How to create a custom start page

Jorn Barger August 1999

There are several steps one needs to master to create a custom start page:

Downloading the HTML source of the template page to your own hard drive
Setting you browser to start from that local file
Finding a text editor that preserves the HTML format
Editing simple HTML tags (and deleting unwanted template links)
Adding other links (eg these)

The goal is to have a single, non-scrolling, quick-loading page that includes all the links you use most, laid out so that you can easily scan for the one you want next.

If you're ambitious, you can move on to these advanced tricks:

Adding a link to your desktop folder
Adding a link to your browser's bookmarks file
Adding custom search patterns (like a Deja search for your own name)
Adding custom search forms
Adding Javascript bookmarklets for search, for embedded date URLs, and for opening multiple URLs at once

I recommend laying out this page as a series of zones -- my top zone is links to files on my own local drive, then the search-engines I use most, then the sites I visit more than once a day, then those I visit once a day (sorted by time of day), then those I visit weekly (sorted by day and time), then custom search patterns, then less-than-weekly sites.

To make the startpage-template your local start page:

Choose "Save as" from the File menu
Save as Source not Text
Notice (or pick) what directory it's being saved in
After saving, choose "Open a page"
Navigate to the same directory, and re-select the page
Choose "Preferences" from the File or Edit menu
Find the start-page preference, and choose 'Use Current Page'

You can customize it by opening the page in your word processor, but be sure when you save it to save it as a text file, not an (eg) Word document.

Another basic tutorial: http://www.webteacher.org/winnet/babyhome/babyhome.html

Another: http://www.learn2.com/05/0502/0502.html

Other startpages: GeneHack, Handy Little List, UWash

Web-design pages:
main : academia : info-design : adding value : resource-pages : lessons-learned : best-worst : plugging leaks

Special topics:
surfing-skills : url-hacking : open content : semantics : pagelength : linktext : startpages : bookmarklets : weblogging : colors : autobiographical pages : thumbnail-graphics : web-video : timeline of hypertext

Anti-XML/W3C/etc:
structure-myth : page-parsing : firstcut-parser : html-history : semantic web

Design prototypes:
topical portal : dense-content faq : annotated lit : random-access lit-summary : poetry sampler : gossipy history : author-resources : hyperlinked-timeline : horizontal-timeslice : web-dossier

Website-resource pages:
RobotWisdom.com : Altavista.com : 1911encyclopedia.com : Google.com : IMDb.com : Perseus.org : Salon.com : Yahoo.com

Older stuff:
design-lab : design-checklist : HyperTerrorist : design-theory : design cog-sci

Before you leave this site: Be sure you've checked out Jorn's weblog which offers daily updates on the best of the Web-- news etc, plus new pages on this site. See also the overview of the hundreds of pages of original content offered here, and the offer for a printed version of the site.

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